Deformation of thin walled bodies by registered shaping

Abstract

A machine for shaping an initially tubular cylindrical preform 1 to form a non-round shape in registration with printed or similarly applied surface decoration or the like on the preform, comprises: a conveyor (3, FIG. 3) for carrying a series of the preforms; a tool table 6 having a plurality of tool stations 7, 9 between which the preforms are conveyed by indexed motion of the conveyor, the tool table being reciprocable along an axis towards and away from the conveyor, to bring forming tools 11 at the tool stations into and out of operative engagement with the preforms; a registered shaping tool 11 at at least one of the tool stations operatively arranged to deform the preforms to an out-of-round shape; at least one sensor 118, 124, (128, 126, 130, 132) operatively arranged to determine the angular orientation of each preform in a plane normal to the reciprocation axis; at least one reorientation actuator (A1, A2, B1, B2, C, D, E), F1, F2, G operatively arranged to cause relative rotation between each preform and the registered shaping tool, whereby the registered shaping tool and the preforms are brought into a predetermined relative angular orientation about an axis of the preform at the registered shaping tool station; the relative rotation with respect to a given preform taking place during a plurality of reciprocations of the tool table and/or indexing movements of the conveyor. Improved embossing/debossing tools are also disclosed (FIGS. 8a-23).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.